The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-04-09
Special Contributors.
EVERLASTING PUNISHMENT.
BY REV. A. A. THAYER.
Dosage, Iowa.)

Nobody desires the doctrine of ever
lasting punishment to be true. 1t is
regarded as great calamity by all
mankind. The saints Of the ages have
always petitioned the Father that the
wicked might repent and escape so
great disaster. The moral aspects of
the doctrine are repulsive. There is
not one good being in the earth who
could pray that any other single person
on the globe should be imprisoned in
painful darkness forever. And this is
true Of the great universe of intelligent
beings everywhere. No whole hearted
human being in the fiesh-no saint or
angel in the heavenly courts on high,
could wish that a sensitive immortal
soul should be thrust into condition
of agony without relief for ever and
ever. All sympathy, all prayer, all
mercy, all love and tenderness, all be-
neyolence and humanity, all the virtue
and goodness, in saints or sinners, plead
for the efficiency of methods to avoid
this distressing conclusion and calam-
ity. Yea, the heart of the Messiah and
the bosom of the Father are overflow
ing with yearnings that this horror may
be averted, and all souls find relief and
JOY.
When, therefore, the sympathetic heart
of the universe is so overwhelmingly
unanimous in one direction, and for
one merciful purpose, is it not lawful
that the reason of man should be en-
ployed to avert the calamity, or even to
show why it is not impending? Hence
if there be any humanity, or any Chris
tianity in Christians, such would be
glad to listen to any qualifying consid-
erations which would throw even
doubt upon the conclusion that some
of our beings may be cast off be-
yond remedy.
Aud l suppose that no one would
feel compelled to believe the endless
ness of human suffering, if the Bible
did not teach it. For certainly, in our
land, the acceptance of this distressing
sentiment is confined to those who ac-
cept the Bible as the standard of belief.
But is it probable that an inspired Bible
would contain doctrine antagonistic
to the love and sympathy of the heav-
enly Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ,
of all the saints in glory, and of all hui
man beings on the earth Are not
love and sympathy among the mighty
forces of all spiritual beings? And
why should that be permitted to be a
truth which would be an eternal apple
of discord in all beings who are worthy
to be happy 1t may well cast a doubt
in the universe, from Him who sitteth
upon the throne in heaven, to the hum
blest scboolboy on earth, desires it to
be true; nay, when all the virtue and
grace of their nature pityingly crave,
that it may not be true. No man dare
proclaim himself baTbarous enough,
and brute enough, to say that he wishes
this doctrine tue. AL Allacknowledge that
they would not believe it-they would
cast it eff as an unhsllowed incubus,
did not the Bible force them to accept
it. The Bible, the Bible, they verify
believe, casts this unwelcome shadow
over the face of mercy, and over the
golden summer lands Of immortality.
Now let our thoughts halt for one or
two reflections. First, no book is hardly
so liable to be misunderstood as the
Bible, because few books are as old as
the Bible. And parts OF the Bible are
thought to be the oldest of all written
composition. But composition in a
dead language which could have been
understood so long ago must, of neces-
sity, be very dif1ierlt to comprehend at
this day. Secondly, religious misap-
prehensiOn once fixed as popular doc
trine, would be most tenacious of its
place, and the hardest to eradicate.
And in the third place, as knowledge
of the Scriptures has increased more
and more, thousands and millions of
Christians have come to believe that the
Bible does not affirm, without qualifica-
tiOn, the distressing doctrine of human
suffering without end. And we have
good reasons for the opinion that mil
lions Of Christians hold this denial as